Israel at war

[Phil C. McNasty]

It is a heinous war crime. For the 100th time, Hamas hiding there, amongst civilians means - Israel should not attack

Here we have it folks, Kautilya is now starting to admit Hamas is hiding amongst civilians.
A few posts before he claimed there's no evidence Hamas was using civilians as human shields.

Link: https://terb.cc/xenforo/threads/israel-at-war.830323/post-8155988

This is progress for him

 

[Frankfooter]

Do you think that so many Gazans would be dead in the last 4 weeks if Hamas had not launched their attack on Oct 7? Yes or no.

Clearly the answer is no yet you still support that attack. You obviously don't care how many Gazans die.

I don't support Hamas' attack anymore than I support Israel's genocide.
Its just you that supports killing people here.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1720526444453834970

 

[mandrill]

It's not a bluff. It would only be a bluff if there were no human shields. But it's known that shitty people do this. There's why the rules of war exist as they do. They are there to protect civilians.

Hamas are guilty of war crimes for using human shields (asking a half dozen other things). If Israel kills the human shields without establishing proportionality, Israel is committed a war crime.

A lot of people keep saying it isn't... Being on Israel's side doesn't change the law. You can't wish it into being lawful. It's a simple fact that knowingly killingly civilians, even if your enemy are war criminals using them as human shields, is a war crime.

How about you include in the "Proportionality" argument, the fact that Israel has to largely take out the HAMAS command structure to avoid a repeat of 7 October in a few months' time?

Can't you argue that even a low proportion of HAMAS officials vis a vis Gazan civilians justifies a bomb or artillery strike due to the overwhelming necessity of destroying those HAMAS officials to protect Israeli civilians in the near future?

Let me give 2 examples and compare them. Desert Storm - the US gets intel that a hospital contains 100 civilian patients and 1 Israeli Ba'ath official. The US vectors in a thunder run by A-10's and kill everyone in the hospital. Clear war crime, if you use the proportionality argument, right?

Let's transfer that hospital to Gaza and the Ba'ath official becomes a top HAMAS official who organized 7 October and has stated that if he survives, he will organize further atrocities to "kill the infidel pig Jews". If that same man is going to murder 200 Israeli civilians in February 2024, isn't it "proportional" to wipe out that hospital?

 

[Klatuu]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1720574419855352174

I hadn’t heard of her. Thanks for letting us know we have additional allies. Keep going Heidi!

 

[Frankfooter]

No, they don't. Repeatedly the UN has turned any issue raised regarding Israel and Palestine to be a demand for Israel to end their illegal occupation, and everytime the vote passes by a large margin and the US steps in to veto it.

This is from 2017, but it lists 43 times the US vetoed UN resolutions on Israel.

The 43 times US has used veto power against UN resolutions on Israel

Last year outgoing US president Barack Obama abstained, allowing a vote against Israeli settlements to pass

www.middleeasteye.net

 

[Klatuu]

Thanks Mitch

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1709202774158614581

 

[Frankfooter]

How about you include in the "Proportionality" argument, the fact that Israel has to largely take out the HAMAS command structure to avoid a repeat of 7 October in a few months' time?

Can't you argue that even a low proportion of HAMAS officials vis a vis Gazan civilians justifies a bomb or artillery strike due to the overwhelming necessity of destroying those HAMAS officials to protect Israeli civilians in the near future?

Same argument Israel made in 2008, 2011, 2014, 2018 and 2021.
Each time they killed as many as they could until international pressure stopped them.
Then the cycle started over again.

Israel is either going 'final solution' or you need a new plan.
Like ending the occupation and apartheid.

You don't really want to go 'final solution' do you?

 

[Butler1000]

Do I need to remind you what you said?


Lt John R. Fox did not "run in to save life". He committed suicide with a bomb to kill the enemy. I never mentioned a cafe, neither did you, so why you bring it up now I don't know.

You can't just keep moving the goalposts. Admit it: we do celebrate people who kill the enemy. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's ridiculous to pretend we don't.

Its not moving the goalposts. Here they are.

Civilians giving their lives for Civilians are celebrated. Military personel giving their lives against other military personel are celebrated, especially if it saves the lives of fellow soldiers or turns the tide in a battle.

Military and civilian bombers killing non combatants in non combat areas for terror purposes are not celebrated in the West. But they are by Muslims. And in fact bounties to families are paid.

There is a clear difference.

 

[Klatuu]

Thanks again little Mitch…..no one would have known about but hers is an experience we all need to fight against. The pro Israel crowd is trying to shut down free speech. Bringing the repression used in Israel against Canadian citizens.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1720214235643265083

 

[DinkleMouse]

How about you include in the "Proportionality" argument, the fact that Israel has to largely take out the HAMAS command structure to avoid a repeat of 7 October in a few months' time?

They would have to establish that's the case, not just speculate that maybe it would.

Bear in mind the bomb shelter example I gave was the largest use of proportionality by the US military in Iraq and it was 400 people. A few other cases involved a dozen or less. I don't think any others exceeded 30 civilian deaths at once even. Large numbers of civilians are very hard to justify.

Can't you argue that even a low proportion of HAMAS officials vis a vis Gazan civilians justifies a bomb or artillery strike due to the overwhelming necessity of destroying those HAMAS officials to protect Israeli civilians in the near future?

I think that would be tough to sell. Less than 2000 Israeli civilians have been killed by Hamas in total since it's inception. October 7th is the first attack that's caused large loss of life and it accounts for way more than half. It would be difficult for Israel to justify, especially now that there's discussion about potential strikes on hospitals with 14,000 civilians in them.

The Israeli math only works if Israeli civilians are some multiple "more valuable" than other civilians. That outlook is not supported in the laws of war.

Let me give 2 examples and compare them. Desert Storm - the US gets intel that a hospital contains 100 civilian patients and 1 Israeli Ba'ath official. The US vectors in a thunder run by A-10's and kill everyone in the hospital. Clear war crime, if you use the proportionality argument, right?

Yes. And establishing proportionality in this case would be difficult.

Let's transfer that hospital to Gaza and the Ba'ath official becomes a top HAMAS official who organized 7 October and has stated that if he survives, he will organize further atrocities to "kill the infidel pig Jews". If that same man is going to murder 200 Israeli civilians in February 2024, isn't it "proportional" to wipe out that hospital?

I think you're also confused about proportionality. It's not a "proportion of us vs them", the proportionality is in comparing the military advantage gained vs the loss of life. You're asking if it's justified to knowingly kill 100 civilians to take out 1 man who is going to conduct an operation you know is he's going to conduct in 3 months. If your intelligence is that good, why can't you stop the attack some other way? Or evacuate he target? Or wait for him to leave the hospital? Waiting for assets to leave civilian areas before taking them out happened all the time in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the military objective could be achieved without the loss of civilian life, then it must be. I haven't really mentioned that before because I assumed it was understood. The primary focus of most laws of war is minimizing civilian deaths. If you can spare them, you must spare them.

The rules of war aren't about saying "here's when you can kill civilians". It's about saying "do everything you possibly can to spare civilian lives and as a last resort here is how to determine if violating that tenet is justified." So you can't just say, "But what about..." because military intelligence still would need to ensure they literally have no other way to accomplish the objective. An intelligence operator's job isn't to set out to find loopholes that let them kill civilians. Their job is to examine every possible angle available to accomplish the mission without killing civilians, or at least without intentionally killing civilians, and only as a last resort to make sure that the blood that's going to be on their hands is necessary and justified.

So you can put anything you want in that calculation. And people will always disagree with you. Certainly none of us will know what intelligence Israel has because they're not stupid enough to publicize their intelligence. But at current count they've killed over 17,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, since Hamas was founded in retaliation for less than 2,000 Israeli deaths, so they've got a very high bar to meet if they're going to say all those were necessary and lawful under proportionality.

 

[Klatuu]

Osgoode will fire this Matthews loser, soon enough......LMAO

Not a chance little Mitch. You’re just a little windbag.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1720163008020631659

 

[Conil]

Watch a Hamas terrorist admitting to =executing= *crying children* from behind a closed door on the October 7th massacre! Hamas=Isis

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1719772549523894464

 

[richaceg]

We are not discussing October 7. We were discussing the psyche and culture of the

Standard.

Whatever they hit they declare it was Hamas aftewards.
Every single time.
Unless they say Hamas did it in the first place.

So why even pick a target? Why not flatten the entire Gaza? Because you know they don't target civilians...some have already moved out of north Gaza...some simply chose to stay and fulfill their sacrifice...

 

[shack]

The blame for the civilian deaths in Gaza, lies solely with Israel. No one else.

You are showing prejudice if you think that it's all one-sided.

I asked earlier (maybe in another thread), do you think that as many Gazans would have died in the last 4 weeks if Hamas would not have launched the Oct. 7 attack?

 

[Conil]

The hamas barberian say: everything we do is justified


Hamas official: We will repeat Oct. 7 attacks over and over again until Israel annihilated

Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas politburo and Hamas deputy prime minister, said in an interview on Lebanon's LBC TV that Hamas will continue to repeat the October 7 'Al-Aqsa Flood' Operation, in which over 1,400 people were cruelly slaughtered and over 200 people kidnapped into Gaza, over and over until Israel is "annihilated."


Hamad told the LBC anchor, in the interview broadcast in Arabic on October 24, that "Israel is a country that has no place on our land. We must remove that country. We are not ashamed to say that with full force. We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do this again and again."
The interview was translated and distributed by the Washington DC-based Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.
"The 'Al-Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight," Hamad said.
He added that Hamas is ready to pay the price of its attacks on Israel. "We are called a nation of martyrs and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs," he said.
Hamad claimed that Hamas "did not want to harm civilians," but that there were "complications on the ground" when they entered Israel, including the large Nova music festival.
He asserted that the "occupation must come to an end." Not just Gaza, he added, "I am talking about all the Palestinian lands."
The Hamas official did not take any responsibility for the difficult existence for the Palestinians in Gaza. "The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood and tears," he said.
"It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation. Period," he stated. "Therefore, nobody should blame us for what we do - on October 7, October 10, October 1,000,000 - everything we do is justified.
Earlier this week, Hamad cut short and stormed out of a BBC interview after the BBC's Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega pressed him to explain how it's justifiable to murder families in their homes as they're sleeping.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r1y31101m6#autoplay

 

[richaceg]

The blame for the civilian deaths in Gaza, lies solely with Israel. No one else.

Not really...they chose hamas because of the promise to get rid of the jews....well...that won't possible without violence Palestinians know this and did it anyway...when you kidnap Israelis, kill civilians, celebrate it as victory...what's the expectations?

 

[Klatuu]

Not really...they chose hamas because of the promise to get rid of the jews....well...that won't possible without violence Palestinians know this and did it anyway...when you kidnap Israelis, kill civilians, celebrate it as victory...what's the expectations?

The ramblings of the brainwashed.

 

[shack]

There are close to 10,000 dead, shack.

Do you think that 10,000 would have died in the last 4 weeks if Hamas had not launched a terrorist attack on Oct. 7.

They triggered the events of the last 4 weeks.

 

[shack]

How do you think this works, shack?
Do they march around with civilians at gunpoint?
Do you think Hamas has a tunnel underneath every single building destroyed?

Why would Hamas use human shields, Israel is bombing the shit out of Gaza regardless of what is there.

You push a really stupid argument to idiocy daily.
All to defend Jewish supremacy.

The red cross says there were no Hamas near the ambulances.
Your just justifying genocide.

Just watch CNN. They have documented Hamas strategy via their reports and their guests. You know, the left-leaning CNN of whom you routinely accept their reporting.

 

[shack]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1720399615348932737

Too funny. Hamas never lies but Israel always does (at least that's what people like frank do when their claims have been debunked).